MY CREATIVE EDGE TALENT VOUCHER SCHEME

Talent vouchers provide a means for graduates, and those in the early stages of career development, to work on specific short projects with established businesses. Through MyCreativeEdge, talent vouchers were available to a maximum value of €2,000. They were used to contract a ‘creative talent’ featured in the ‘Employ a Creative’ section of the MyCreativeEdge website to carry out a specific creative assignment for the business on a freelance basis. Eligible applicants were business members of the MyCreativeEdge.eu website and based in: the West of Ireland (counties Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway or Clare); Västerbotten in Northern Sweden; or Lapland and North Ostrobothnia in Northern Finland.

To apply for a talent voucher, applicants were asked to set out the purpose of the assignment, including the likely benefits for the creative business and the creative talent. The deadline for applications was September 20th 2013. By the deadline a total of 24 applications were received.

Following the evaluation of applications, ten members of MyCreativeEdge were selected to receive talent vouchers. From the western region of Ireland these were: Donegal Designer Makers, Cox Power Architects, Black Hole Studios, Allan Curran Architects and Leitrim Design House. Lucky Star Music, David Sandberg and Kulturstorm were awarded vouchers in Västerbotten, Sweden. From Northern Finland, Ilme Innoroom LTD and SunSää were awarded vouchers.

Talent vouchers were used for example by Donegal Designer Makers to develop craft product merchandise promotion photography and to create a craft trail brochure, with the voucher used to cover the costs of design and printing. Cox Power Architects used the voucher to re-design their website to help market their services to international clients and make the website compatible with mobiles and tablets. Black Hole Studios used the voucher for aerial photography and a 3D animator to help make a music video for a track produced by Black Hole Studios.